Andrew Ure (1778–1857)

Ure wrote his book for the expressed purpose of promoting the study of geology, that “magnificent field of knowledge.”

Andrew Ure was born in Glasgow on May 18,
1778,1, 2 to Anne and Alexander Ure, a cheesemonger.
He studied first at the University of
Glasgow and later of Edinburgh, obtaining his
M.A. in 1798–99 and his M.D. in Glasgow in
1801. After graduation, he served briefly as an
army surgeon in the north of Scotland before
settling in Glasgow, where he became a member
of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in
1803. The following year he replaced Dr. George
Birkbeck as professor of natural philosophy
(specializing in chemistry and physics) at the
recently formed Andersonian Institution (now
the University of Strathclyde) in Glasgow.

As well as successful teaching there, for about
20 years he also gave extremely popular evening
lectures in chemistry and mechanics for artisans
in the city. Attended by as many as 500 people,
including up to 50 women, these courses were
influential in the development of similar institutes
in Edinburgh, Paris, London, and other cities.3 Of
this work, one contemporary wrote, “To Dr. Ure
belongs the honor of having taken the lead in a
movement which has had incalculable influence
in developing national wealth, and promoting the
interests both of science and art.”4 In these lectures
he covered such topics as electricity, magnetism,
heat, light, mechanics, hydrostatics and hydraulics,
pneumatics, and astronomy. The lectures all
included physical experimental demonstrations,
and so the course times were split between evening
and morning lectures, since some experiments
were best done by candlelight and others by
daylight.5

Additionally, in 1814 he began lecturing
during the summers at the Royal Belfast Academical
Institution. Eventually, strained relationships
with the management of the Andersonian
Institution led to his resignation in 1830. He
moved to London and became probably the first
consulting chemist in Britain, which provided
him with a comfortable living, but not great
wealth. In 1834 he began to be used regularly as
an analytical chemist by the Board of Customs,
which did not pay him a salary, but only on a
per-analysis basis.6 In this capacity he demonstrated
that he was willing to make financial
sacrifices and to risk personal friendships and
professional reputation for the sake of scientific
truth and the exposure of large-scale criminal
activity.7 As a chemist, he was highly esteemed
by contemporary scientists, and Michael Faraday
said that not one of Ure’s chemical analyses was
ever impugned.8

Andrew Ure (1778–1857)

In 1809, after a trip to London to meet some
of the appropriate leading scientists, he helped
establish the Glasgow Observatory and was
appointed its astronomer.9 For several years he
resided there, and during this time the famous
astronomer William Herschel assisted him to
install a 14-foot reflecting telescope, which Ure
had designed and manufactured.10 He was one of
the original honorary fellows of the Geological
Society of London shortly after it was founded
in 1807, was an original member of the Astronomical
Society, and became a fellow of the
Royal Society in 1822.11 He was also accepted
into the membership of several foreign scientific
bodies, such as the Philadelphia Academy of
Natural Science and the Pharmacological Society
of Northern Germany.12 He wrote extensively
throughout his life: seven books and more than
53 scientific journal articles.13 The books included
A New Systematic Table of the Materia Medica
(1813),14A Dictionary of Chemistry (1821),15Elements
of the Art of Dyeing (1824),16A New System
of Geology (1829, 621 pages),17The Philosophy
of Manufactures (1835, 480 pages),18A Dictionary
of Arts, Manufactures and Mines (1839, 1,334
pages),19 and The Cotton Manufacture of Great
Britain (1836, 2 volumes).20

His journal articles primarily dealt with various
chemical problems. But other topics included
gravity, telescopes, a thermostat, methods of apartment
heating and ventilation, gunpowder and
detonating matches, thunder-rods, experiments
on a human cadaver,21 and four articles on light.
A paper on the latent heat of vapors, published
in 1817, was influential in the development of
many modern meteorological theories. Many of
these articles were republished by foreign scientific
journals. He was also a linguist and a fair classical
scholar, was well acquainted with English and
foreign literature, and had read deeply in theology
and biblical criticism. All in all he was “one
of those brilliantly versatile men of science” in the
early 19th century, who had an “encyclopaedic
understanding” covering many subjects.22

His marriage to Catherine Monteath in 1807
lasted only 12 years until Andrew divorced her
due to her adulterous relationship with Granville
Pattison, the professor of anatomy at the Andersonian
Institution. During those 12 years, however,
the Ures had two sons and one daughter. His
daughter married but also remained devoted to
him, traveling with him to the continent several
times later in life as he sought treatment at spas
for what was then diagnosed as gout, which for
many years affected the right side of his body after
any physical exertion. On January 2, 1857, at the
age of 78 and still maintaining mental sharpness,
Ure died after a few days of illness.

Geological Competence

Although in 1805 Ure had visited all the
principal mines in the United Kingdom,23 he
acknowledged that he did not write his book on
the basis of original geological investigations.
Rather, he endeavored to draw “freely from every
authentic source of geological knowledge within
his reach”24 and his writings show wide reading
in geology books and pertinent articles in leading
British and foreign scientific journals. Though
his intention was “careful merely to quote his
authorities, and to acknowledge his obligations”
and generally he did mention a person’s name
when using their material (which was usually set
in a different print type), he could have avoided
one criticism of his work by footnoting the actual
sources far more often than he did. He specifically
expressed his considerable debt to Conybeare and
Phillips’ Outlines of the Geology of England and
Wales, though he also “diligently availed himself”
of the valuable information in Cuvier’s Ossemens
Fossiles.25

Apart from reading, he collected some fossils
and did a number of chemical analyses of the
composition of various kinds of rocks.26 Also,
with relevance to a theory of earth history, he had
very good meteorological knowledge, which he
brought to bear on his discussions of the initial
creation, the Flood, and the distribution of plants
and animals.27

As far as his reading of other scriptural geologists
is concerned, he made a negative comment
about the cosmology of Kirwan and referred
positively to Hutchinson’s and Catcott’s views on
valleys of denudation. In defense of a global Noachian
flood he said that Penn’s Mineral and Mosaic
Geologies merited “the deepest reverence,” though
he disagreed with Penn’s estimate of the ratio
of antediluvian land and sea.28 He did not give
any evidence of having read the works of George
Young or George Bugg.29

Geology and Geologists

Ure wrote his book for the expressed purpose
of promoting the study of geology, that “magnificent field of knowledge.”30 He was very charitable
and respectful in his comments about geologists.
Conybeare’s and Phillips’ work was “excellent”
and of “inestimable” value, William Smith’s work
on using fossils to identify strata was “admirable,”
Von Buch was “second to none in mountain geology,”
and Scrope and Daubeny had done “ingenious”
work on volcanoes.31 Similar remarks were
made of the sagacious work of Buckland, Lyell,
Murchison, and other geologists in the United
Kingdom and in Europe. There is absolutely no
basis in Ure’s book for Lyell’s charge that Ure
wanted all the old-earth geologists “to be burnt [at
the stake] at Smithfield.”32

As far as geological theory was concerned Ure
made a strong effort to avoid dogmatism.

However momentous the interests involved
in this inquiry may be, it demands,
however, the utmost delicacy and circumspection.
Every approach to controversial
acrimony should be deprecated. The
advocates of religion do not always bear in
mind that compassion is the only feeling
which they are allowed to entertain towards
those who unhappily want the faith
essential to salvation. The more violent
their rejection of the Christian doctrine,
the more gentle should its teachers be in
addressing unbelievers. Dogmatic virulence
never made a convert.33

At several points in his argument Ure displayed
caution in his theoretical speculations and
calmly presented his reasons for favoring one
interpretation of the scientific observations over
another.34 He closed his book by saying:

In concluding my survey of the primeval
world, while I readily acknowledge
that many of my views are but partially
developed, or faintly shadowed forth, and
that some of them may want confirmation,
yet I trust that the accordances brought out
between scientific induction, and sacred history,
are neither fanciful, nor over-strained.35

E.L. Scott accuses Ure of an “air of conscious
superiority” and “intemperate scorn for
his contemporaries and the self-aggrandizement
that characterized much of his writing.”36 Farrar
repeatedly criticizes Ure, saying that he “seldom
expressed himself in calm and moderate terms”
but rather used “intemperate polemics” against
others.37 But these portrayals seem to be very
exaggerated generalizations in light of Ure’s above
remarks and the fact that his surviving correspondence
shows that he enjoyed good relations with
many prominent scientists for most of his life
and that he had a wide circle of friends, many of
them leading scientists in the United Kingdom
and abroad, who lamented his death.38 In any case,
such a negative picture would not be a just reflection
of the tone of Ure’s New System of Geology.39

Nevertheless, Ure considered Werner’s Neptunist
theory of earth history to be “a world-building
hypothesis, so extravagant, so visionary, and
so inconsistent with every principle of mechanical
and chemical science.”40 Hutton’s uniformitarian
theory fared no better in Ure’s estimation. Rather,
to build a sound geological theory, the example of
Bacon and Newton needed to be followed.

Our age and nation never cease to
extol Bacon’s inductive logic, and the
rigid demonstrations of Newton. One is
naturally led to suppose, that those who
so loudly profess to be their disciples,
should imitate, in some degree at least, the
methods of research prescribed and practiced
by these great masters of reason and
science. We should expect to find the facts
subservient to any doctrine, collected with
labor and skill, examined with scrupulous
caution, and lucidly arranged without
deceptive art. It is only facts, thus carefully
chosen and candidly compared, which
can be generalized into a just theory. If we
examine the ablest expositions of the Wernerian
and Huttonian geologies by that
philosophic standard, we shall find them
to fall egregiously short.41

The Relationship Between Scripture and Geology

Ure believed that when both the geological
phenomena and the Scriptures were rightly
interpreted they would agree, since both were the
work of God.42 Like most of his old-earth contemporaries,
Ure also believed that the ultimate fruit
of scientific and philosophical study was to draw
man’s attention to the Creator. Of the creation he
said, “All its parts display so clearly the work of an
Almighty hand, as to impress moral and religious
sentiments, on every unperverted naturalist.”43

In seeking to follow Bacon, he insisted that
geology, like any science, must be based on experimentation,
careful observation, and sound inductive
logic.44 But he made qualifications to a quoted
statement from Bacon’s Novum Organum45 to the
effect that we should not try to “establish a body
of natural philosophy” from Genesis 1 and other
portions of Scripture about creation. Ure wrote:

The censure [of Bacon] here bestowed
on those who construct schemes of philosophy
on scripture texts, is perfectly
just, but it does not apply to those who
endeavor to prove, by inductive evidence,
that the conclusions of philosophy are
not discordant with the order of physical
events, recorded by Moses. The object of
Bacon’s reprobation is not the besetting
sin of the present age. Science must now
be built up on its own foundations, by its
own rules, and with its own materials. The
individual who would attempt to deduce
a single principle in science from any phenomenon
described in the Bible, would be
regarded as no friend either to philosophy
or religion. But when the principles of
physics are fairly established on their own
bases, it becomes a subject of interest, to
examine how far certain natural phenomena
related by the inspired historian, are
conformable to our digest of the laws of
nature. If an accordance can be clearly
made out between things so distinct and
independent, as ancient testimony, and
the results of modern research, faith and
reason will enjoy a just triumph, propitious
to their mutual influence on mankind.
This procedure is just the inverse of
what Bacon reprobates. We do not seek
the living among the dead; we do not determine
the existing or actual properties of
matter, from a few brief notices of mighty
revolutions which it anciently suffered.46

Ure agreed that the Bible was not given to
man as a scientific textbook: “Revelation was
certainly not imparted to mankind, for the purpose
of instructing them in any principles of
philosophy, which reason can explore. When the
phenomena of nature are described [in Scripture],
it is always in popular language, corresponding
to the information of sense.”47 So, he argued, the
Bible does not teach us “the actual motion or repose of” the heavenly bodies; that is something
for astronomers to investigate.48 Likewise, it does
not describe the ratios of land and sea before and
after the Flood; that should be considered on the
basis of sound principles of meteorology, physics,
geology, etc.49

In his mind, the proper domain of science is in the repeatable and experimental study of the way in which things in creation function in the observable present.

But this did not mean for Ure that the Bible
was irrelevant to the question of the history of the
earth. He made a sharp distinction between the
present operation of the universe (and all it contains)
and its past origin and history. In his mind,
the proper domain of science is in the repeatable
and experimental study of the way in which things
in creation function in the observable present.
But when we turn to the unobservable past we are
entering into a great deal of speculation.

Astronomy never reverts to a state of
repose, antecedent to their actual condition.
It contemplates the velocities and
mutual equilibrium of moving bodies, but
does not venture to speculate on a former
or a future state, an origin or an end of the
actual appearances of the heavens. In this
respect, astronomers differ widely from
our two famous geologists, Werner and
Hutton, who do not confine their inquiries
to the existing cycle of phenomena,
but boldly remount to a hypothetical order
very different from the present, which
no human eye ever witnessed.50

Because of our “absolute ignorance concerning
the origin of our terrestrial system” and because
of the great moral implications of the question of
origins, he continued, “it would therefore seem
not unreasonable to consider such facts as the Deity
has thought fit to reveal concerning the formation
and garnishing of this globe as an abode of
vegetable and animal beings.”51 The Scriptures,
“the unerring oracles of God,” were seen by Ure to
set the boundaries for speculative theories about
the early history of the earth.

That divine revelation was not imparted
to man, for the purpose of instructing
him in the recondite principles
of physics, is a proposition fully laid
down in the Introduction. Yet there may
be certain primary facts, beyond the horizon
of science, shadowed out by prophecy,
as limits to speculative temerity and
resting points to the pious spirit. Without
such supplemental illumination, man can
know nothing of the cause, and manner,
of himself, and his companion beings,
coming into existence.52

His Book on Geology

The full title of Ure’s book reads, A New
System of Geology, in Which the Great Revolutions
of the Earth and Animated Nature Are Reconciled
at Once to Modern Science and Sacred History. Ure
did not write his book to add to the storehouse of
geological observations, but to serve as an “introduction
and incentive to the study” of other
geological works. Of himself he said:

His leading object has been to distribute
the most interesting and best established
truths, illustrative of the structure
and revolutions of the earth, in the order
of their physical connexions and causes;
whence certain general inductions might
be legitimately seen to flow.53

In so doing he sought to present on the basis
of physical and geological science “a view of
certain intrinsic sources of change” in the earth’s
constitution, which he believed other natural philosophers
had not considered.

He also wanted “to lead popular students of
philosophy, to the moral and religious uses of their
knowledge.”54 He sensed that a growing number
of anti-Christian natural philosophers were using
science to undermine morality and faith in the
Scriptures. In an allusion to the French Revolution,
he said that as these skeptics gained university
posts they would contribute to the “loosening
[of ] the frame work of society [and] bring down
a second fearful crash of atheism and crime.”55
He believed that sound natural philosophy would
point toward the true and living God of Scripture
and so he sought to show the concordances of
science and Scripture, thereby “strengthening the
faith of the pious.”56

Ure’s book, most of which is descriptive geology,
is organized in a reasonably systematic way, with
an introduction and then three major sections: 1)
the primordial world, which covered creation (pages
1–129), 2) the antediluvian period, which in Ure’s
view formed the secondary and tertiary strata (pages
129–349), and 3) the Deluge (pages 350–614). It
includes 50 wood engravings of fossils and geological
phenomena and six plates of fossils representative
of some of the geological formations.

Creation and Pre-Flood History

Ure believed in a literal six-day creation of
the universe, which was finished in a perfect form
about 6,000 years ago.57 In opposition to both
the day-age theory and gap theory, he argued that
both the contextual use of “day” in Genesis 1 and
God’s commentary in Exodus 20:8–11 prove that
the creation days were 24 hours long, the length
of one rotation of the earth, and that the first day
was the beginning of the whole creation.58

He contended that the notion that the earth
was formed from a chaotic mass by the laws of nature
over vast indefinite ages of time was contrary
to reason and made God appear as an imbecile.
Rather, the primitive earth (with its primitive
rocks) was an instantaneous, fiat creation of
God.59 On the appointed day, God also supernaturally
and instantly created mature plants and
animals (i.e., with the appearance of age).60 The
sun, along with the other stars, was created on day
1 with the earth, when the universal law of gravitation
was instituted. But not until day 4 were
they invested with rays of light as they “acquired
their lucid exterior.”61

Ure reasoned that the original earth was created
instantaneously as a spheroid perfectly suited
for life. It had a molten interior with a crust of
concentric horizontal strata of gneiss, mica-slate,
and clay-slate, with partial layers of semi-crystalline
limestone, all of which were initially enveloped
by a universal ocean.62 These were the primitive
rocks of day 1 of creation, which explains why
they contain no fossil remains. When God made
the dry land to appear on day 3, the transition
strata began to be formed in the ocean bottom,
being increasingly mingled over time with marine
exuviae after they were created on day 5.63 Ure
believed that the ocean at this time and prior to
the Flood was smaller in surface area (equal in size
to the land mass) but deeper, which contributed
to warmer and drier antediluvian climate.64

When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the
earth,65 one effect of which, in Ure’s view, was a
long series of localized convulsive events all over
the more thinly crusted ocean bottom, which
culminated finally in God’s judgment of a global
Flood.66 During this antediluvian period of 1,600
years, the regular pattern of fossiliferous secondary
and tertiary strata was formed on the ocean bottom,
as basaltic eruptions agitated the seas causing
partial destructions of the land and its inhabitants
and local elevations of parts of the seabed.67
In this regard, Ure basically accepted the old-earth
theory for the deposition of these sedimentary
formations over a long period of time and by many
catastrophes, though in contrast to old-earth geologists
he believed the biblical chronology provided
sufficient time for these events. As we have seen,
Ure gave only a brief biblical argument against the
gap and day-age theories. Apart from short comments
showing why he rejected the nebular hypothesis
(with its gradually cooling earth) and a limited
discussion of how the advancing desert sands of
Egypt could serve as a chronometer for measuring
the date of the Flood (consistent with Genesis), he
did not make much effort to explicitly refute, with
geological reasons, the old-earth time scale.68 He
did, however, add a theological argument against
the old-earth view: the fossil-bearing strata and
diluvium speak of the wrath of God against sin and
do not reflect the creative work of God.

Such a dismal ruin of all organic beings,
such a derangement of the fair frame
of nature seem to be irreconcilable difficulties in natural theism. For is not the
wisdom of God impeached in constructing
a world on foundations so infirm; his
prescience in peopling so precarious an
abode, with countless myriads of exquisite
mechanisms; and his goodness in plunging
indiscriminately every tribe and family
of his sentient off spring in mortal agony
and death? A creation replete with beauty
and enjoyment, suddenly transformed by
its Creator’s mandate or permission into
a waste of waters, is a moral phenomenon
which certes no system of ethics can
explain. Here, metaphysics, the boasted
mistress of mind, with all her train of categories,
stands at fault. But here, if reason
will deign to forego its pride, and implore
the aid of a superior light, the Hebrew
prophet will lift up the dark veil from the
primeval scene. In revealing the disobedience
of Adam, the atrocious guilt of Cain,
and the pestilence of sin, almost universally
spread among the progeny, he shows,
alas! too clearly, how justice outraged, and
mercy spurned, inevitably called forth the
final lustration of the Deluge. This conclusion,
no philosopher can reasonably gainsay,
who considers man as a responsible
agent, and this earth with all its apparatus
of organic life, as mainly subservient to his
moral and intellectual education.69

The Flood

Ure devoted 240 pages to a discussion of the
Flood, which included no detailed analysis of the
biblical account of the event. He believed that it
was a global, year-long, penal judgment of God,
the last in a series of previous smaller catastrophes,
which themselves were the secondary cause
of the Flood.70 These pre-Flood catastrophes,
though far from universal, were considered significant enough to extend the area of the ocean
step by step by permanently submerging some
of the land. This process also had a cooling effect
on the earth’s climate (which is a subject we
will return to shortly). So, in a way that he did
not fully explain, the Flood was both a divine
interruption and a result of the normal laws of
nature. Regarding this uniformity of nature he
wrote:

In the Newtonian philosophy, no
other causes of natural events can be
admitted than what are known to be really
operative, and adequate to account for the
phenomena. This inductive law prohibits
the employment of hypothetical assumptions,
whose existence we cannot prove,
such as the attraction of a comet in deranging
the axis of the earth, or deluging
it, by lifting the waters from their ocean
bed. Nor will modern discovery suffer
the theorist to summon from the bowels
of the earth an ideal abyss to serve his
purposes; far less allow him to get rid of a
meteoric deluge imported by an aqueous
coma for the occasion. Thus wisely circumscribed,
but by no means fettered, we
shall have no difficulty in finding actual
and potential forces, capable of explaining
the principal appearances, incident to the
great diluvial catastrophe, and its precursor
inundations.71

The uniquely global Flood raised many of
the secondary and tertiary strata out of the ocean
as the antediluvian land sank.72 The evidences
of this event were the diluvial deposits of gravel,
erratic boulders, and fossils of extinct creatures,
the scratches and furrows on the surface of many
strata, the trap rocks witnessing to the intensified volcanic activity, and the pagan traditions of
such a Flood. In this view he was in considerable
harmony with the old-earth catastrophists of his
day, such as Cuvier, Buckland, Brongniart, Conybeare,
and Phillips.73 Ure’s answer for why no fossil
humans had been found was simple: the lands
inhabited by antediluvian man were permanently
submerged by the Deluge.74

Ure devoted a considerable amount of discussion
to the climatic impact of the Flood, giving
us one of the earliest conceptions of an ice age.75
He reasoned that at the beginning of the Flood
the ratio of land to sea was probably about 1:1.
This arrangement, along with a cloud canopy
high in the upper atmosphere (“the waters above”
of Gen. 1:7)76 and an initially warmer ocean, had
produced a very warm and uniform temperature
on the earth.77 As a result, he conceived that in
the pre-Flood world there were no winds to speak
of, nor virtually any rain (nor rainbows, which
Ure thought was implied by Gen. 9:11–17).
Rather, a heavy dew, resulting from the vertical
movements of air causing evaporation and condensation,
watered the earth (which Ure based
on Gen. 2:5–6).78

However, the Flood reordered the surface
features of the earth, leaving the present ratio of
land to sea. This caused a “sudden and vast refrigeration”79
of the earth accompanied by much
precipitation. The result was a rapid build-up
of glaciers in the higher latitudes.80 Ure argued
that these glaciers would have transported much
diluvial gravel and would account for the woolly
mammoths of Siberia and the fossilized tropical
plants found in the Arctic by the explorations
of Sir William Edward Parry (1790–1855)81 in
1819–20. For a long time after the Flood the
earth would have remained, at least in the extratropical
zones, relatively damp and cold, gradually
passing to a considerably drier and warmer
climate and in places producing deserts, such as in
northern Africa.

Ure said that another result of the Flood,
along with the sedimentation process of the previous
1,600 years, would have been a much thicker
crust over the molten interior of the earth, which
in turn would produce a more stable post-diluvian
terraqueous system (in terms of volcanic and
earthquake activity).

One other aspect of Ure’s theory about the
Flood was that he, like Penn, believed that God
supernaturally created new animals to suit the
transformed earth.82 The animals on the ark with
Noah would have provided food for the human
survivors of the Flood. Their stock probably died
out in the course of a few generations. His reasons
for postulating this were that 1) extinct fossil
animals were so different from existing forms, 2)
this seemed to be the only way to explain why
some animals are found only in one location on
earth, such as Australia, 3) the types of most existing
races of animals are not found in the diluvial
deposits, 4) the lack of any ape fossils at the time,
and 5) Psalm 104, which Ure believed seems to
describe the Flood and to speak of God creating
animals (v. 30) as He renewed the earth.

Reviews of His Geology

Having examined Ure’s book, we now have
a context for considering several reviews it
received, which shed light on the nature of the
Genesis-geology debate.

The British Critic,83 while commending Ure’s
moral and religious objective for writing, considered
the book to be no friend of science or Scripture.
Among other things, it criticized Ure for not
taking a very literal interpretation of Scripture (as
he said we should). For example, Ure postulated
many land-submerging catastrophes before the
Flood, about which the Bible made no mention
and he proposed new creations of animals after
the Flood whereas the Bible said that the animals
on the ark replenished the earth.

The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature
and Art gave a very positive review84 calling it
an “interesting, and in many respects original,
work,” though it could have been better titled as
“Geological Physics” or “Philosophy of Geology.”
To the reviewer, the book displayed Ure’s proven
“vigilance of observation and logical acumen” and
it “has not in the least a controversial texture.”85
Ure’s discussion of the primitive formation was
praised for its reference to Macculloch’s “excellent”
papers on granite (published in the same
journal) and Von Buch’s latest observations on
volcanic rocks in the Alps. The reviewer believed
that Ure’s overview of the secondary and tertiary
formations “will contribute essentially to promote
the popular diffusion of geological science.”86 One
of the vexing problems for geologists at the time
was to explain the fossil evidence of tropical plants
and animals buried in northern latitudes, which
suggested to many that there had been in the past
a global tropical climate. The reviewer regarded
Ure’s proposed explanation “to be equally new
and striking.”87 He concluded by saying, “On the
whole, we regard this new system of geology, as
one of the most valuable accessions lately made to
the scientific literature of our country.”88

Reverend Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873)

The most influential and scathing review was
written by the Cambridge geologist, Reverend
Adam Sedgwick, in his annual presidential address
to the Geological Society.89 He said Ure’s book
contained “the worst violations of philosophic
rule, by the daring union of things incongruous,”
and “the bold and unauthorized hypothesis” that
the primitive rocks were instantly created by divine
fiat.90 Sedgwick did not have one good thing
to say about the book; he did not even acknowledge
how much Ure agreed with contemporary
catastrophists, as we have noted. While many of
his criticisms were valid, a general overview of
them suggests that Sedgwick may have been diligently
looking for nothing but errors of detail, for
he made no comment on any of Ure’s theoretical
discussions as the review in Journal of Science had
done.

Sedgwick was very irritated by what he called
“a complication of errors as nearly baffles all
attempts at description.”91 However, upon careful
inspection, some of Sedgwick’s examples of
error do not appear to be errors at all, or at least
Sedgwick’s obvious anger about them seems out
of proportion to the insignificant nature of the
error.92 Since Sedgwick’s review was so hostile and
influential, it will be enlightening to consider two
of these cases.

Sedgwick charged that “In one place we are
told,93 that the lower secondary rocks are characterized
by the simplest forms of the animal
kingdom. In another,94 we find fish enumerated
among the fossils of the transition (or submedial)
strata.”95 In the first place, we might say that the
average reader in Ure’s target audience would
never have made such a connection of minute
detail between such vastly separated pages (about
150). But actually, when the statements are taken
in context they are both seen to be true. In the
first statement, Ure was describing, in two pages
of the “Introduction,” a general view of the whole
geological record, with relatively simple marine
creatures at the bottom, and reptiles, amphibians,
and mammals more common at the top. This, in
fact, is precisely how Sedgwick himself described
the geological record when writing in 1845 to
Agassiz about his disdain for the theory of evolution.96
The second statement Ure made was in the
context of a lengthy and detailed discussion of the
transition strata and it was also true.97

In another example, the details are only
those which an expert geologist like Sedgwick
(for whom Ure expressly did not write the book)
would have known and noticed and, even if the
example constituted an error, it was petty. Sedgwick
said that Ure had figured the “Steeple Ashton
caryophyllia (the characteristic fossil of the middle
oolite)” as “a fossil of the inferior system” (i.e., the
lower oolite). In fact, on Ure’s cited page (251),
the figure is subtitled (in agreement with the
wording in the paragraph next to it) less precisely
as simply a “Caryophyllia,” which Conybeare
and Phillips listed as one of the fossils found in
the inferior oolite.98 The majority of Ure’s readers
would likely not have even noticed, much
less remembered and been terribly misguided,
by such a slightly erroneous detail. Further, it
seems reasonable to assume that Ure was using an
available picture of a Caryophyllia to illustrate for
his non-specialist reader, rather than to precisely
distinguish species of Caryophyllia, as Sedgwick
was doing.

Many of the other specific errors Sedgwick
mentioned were completely valid and did reflect
that Ure’s knowledge of some of the geological
details was a little out of date or confused, or that
he had not done an adequate job in editing before
the book went to press.99 But Sedgwick’s severe
reaction seems to warrant the same geologically
informed response that “T.E.” gave to a similarly
negative review. T.E. wrote:

In general, indeed, I think we should
be careful how we magnify molehills into
mountains, and, for a few inaccuracies
and marks of inattention, throw discredit
on a book which, like Dr. Ure’s, contains
so many pages of sound induction and
philosophic reasoning; and although most
people will be inclined to differ, more or
less, from his theory, or the arguments
adduced in its support, yet, as geologists
still seem inclined to adhere to one of
the three hypotheses mentioned by Mr.
Conybeare in his Introduction,100 a book
written in support of one of them, by
such a man as Ure may not be without
its use; perhaps, indeed, we might all be
much benefited, and our ideas enlarged,
if men qualified for such speculation were
to illustrate the other two, in connection
with a good practical account of the present
state of the science.101

The harshness of Sedgwick’s criticism also
seems inconsistent with his own statement in
the paragraph immediately following his critique
of Ure, where he said, “It is indeed true that in
the very classification of our facts and of our
phaenomena, there are difficulties connected with
all parts of natural history, which for ages yet to
come, may continue to require for their solution
a combination of the greatest industry with the
greatest skill.”102 It is hard to avoid the conclusion
that something other than minor errors was driving
Sedgwick’s hostility toward Ure’s book.

Conclusion

Though a fellow of the Geological Society, Ure
was not, and did not present himself as, an original
investigator of geological phenomena. Rather,
he quoted, too often without adequate citation,
from the works of others. In much of his thinking
he was in total agreement with the leading old-earth
catastrophists of the day: he accepted the
distinctions and temporal separation of the different
strata (though spanning only about 1,600
years), as interpreted by the use of characteristic
fossils, and his view of the geological effects of
Noah’s flood was virtually identical to that of old-earth
geologist John Phillips, who published the
same year. But what he sought to do was to offer
some new perspectives on the facts and incorporate
into a theory of creation and earth history
information which had not been previously
known or applied to this question. For example,
the undulation theory of light with reference to
the creation of light and the celestial bodies, and
meteorological knowledge in relation to the early
earth, the Flood and the Flood-induced “ice age”
(as it would later be called). He believed that the
unerring Scriptures do not teach a system of science,
but that they are relevant to the question of
origins. That question is outside the realm of experimental
science, which studies present-day processes.
Though not working out a detailed connection
between Genesis and geology, he endeavored
to speculate on the basis of current knowledge and
within what for him were the limiting boundaries
set by Scripture, namely, a six-day creation about
6,000 years ago and a global catastrophic Flood.

Ure’s long teaching career up to this point
reflects his desire to advance general scientific
knowledge among the common people and
to show how geology related to Scripture. His
commitment to biblical truth and true scientific
knowledge and his concern that atheistic science
(toward which, he felt, geology was tending)
would be detrimental to society and to the Christian
faith, motivated him to write on geology.

The Great Turning Point

Many people in the church today think that “young-earth” creationism is a fairly recent invention, popularized by fundamentalist Christians in the mid-20th century. Is this view correct? Answers in Genesis scholar Dr. Terry Mortenson presents his fascinating original research that documents a different story.

W.V. Farrar, “Andrew Ure, F.R.S., and the Philosophy of Manufactures,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London,
vol. 27, no. 2 (Feb. 1973), p. 300. Ure attributed this in some measure to the favorable report of his teaching the artisans
which was given by Charles Dupin in his Tour through Great Britain (1817). The schools following Ure’s model included
the Edinburgh School of Arts, the Conservatory of Arts in Paris, and the Mechanics’ Institutions in London and other
cities. See Andrew Ure, New System of Geology (1829), p. xxxviii.

Ure’s obituary, Gentlemen’s Magazine, N.S. vol. II (1857), p. 242.

Andrew Ure, Outlines of Natural or Experimental Philosophy (1809). This short booklet described his lectures for those who
would take the course. The topics covered reflect Ure’s great breadth and depth of scientific knowledge gained by both
reading and experimentation.

Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography (1865), III: p. 857.

See Andrew Ure, The Revenue in Jeopardy from Spurious Chemistry (1843), especially p. iii, v, and 33. In order to serve the
national interest, Ure consumed much time and money on these analyses. Such time and money could have generated
more income if invested in non-government work.

For Michael Faraday’s remarks, and a similar view expressed by E.D. Clark, see W.S.C. Copeman, “Andrew Ure, M.D.,
F.R.S. (1778–1857),” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 44 (1951), p. 659–660. A review of Ure’s New
System of Geology in Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and Art, N.S. vol. V (Jan.–Mar. 1829), p. 113, stated that Ure
“has been long esteemed among men of science for his able and intrepid refutation of numerous errors current in some of
our chemical systems.” The review was possibly by the editor, William Brande, himself a chemistry professor at the Royal
Institution, as well as a friend of Ure’s. An obituary, in Gentlemen’s Magazine, N.S. vol. II (1857), p. 243, likewise noted
that Ure’s “skill and accuracy as an analytical chemist were well-known.”

Andrew Ure, Dictionary of Arts, Manufacturers and Mines (1839), title page; Anonymous, Dr. Andrew Ure: A Slight Sketch
(1874), p. 17–18. This anonymous work may have been by William Beattie, according to William A.S. Sarjeant, Geologists
and the History of Geology (1980), III: p. 2310. Beattie was a Scottish medical doctor and possibly knew Ure from their
early years at Edinburgh University.

Catalogue of the Royal Society. Farrar says there were many more journal articles than listed here. See W.V. Farrar, “Andrew
Ure, F.R.S., and the Philosophy of Manufactures,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 27, no. 2 (Feb.
1973), p. 304.

Ure claimed that this was the first scientific book on pharmacology. See W.S.C. Copeman, “Andrew Ure, M.D., F.R.S.
(1778–1857),” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 44 (1951), p. 658.

This was a virtual rewrite of William Nicholson’s outdated work by the same title. Ure’s version reached a fourth edition
in 1835. French, German, Spanish, and Russian translations were also published. The 1841 American edition became and
remained the standard chemistry textbook in the USA for many years. See ibid., p. 659.

This was a two-volume translation of the French work of Claude Louis and A.B. Berthollet.

As the focus of this study, hereafter it will be referred to simply as Geology.

This work was based on a tour Ure made of the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Cheshire, and it
embodied one of the first clear recognitions of the cultural impact of the “industrial revolution” (DSB on Ure). In it, Ure
displayed a concern that factories be places where workers were well-paid, healthy, educated (in secular and Christian
knowledge), and godly in character. He was especially concerned about good education for poor children. He was convinced,
and presented some of the evidence that led him to that conviction, that British factories were generally doing
well in these areas, though there was room for improvement. Most historians would say that he was overly optimistic
about factory conditions. See, for example, Robin M. Reeve, The Industrial Revolution 1750–1850 (London: University
of London Press, 1971), especially pages 65–66 and 76.
A third edition of the book appeared in 1847, a posthumous edition came out in 1861, and a reprint was done in
1967. It was also translated into French and German. See W.S.C. Copeman, “Andrew Ure, M.D., F.R.S. (1778–1857),”
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 44 (1951), p. 661.

This was a greatly broadened version of his Dictionary of Chemistry. See DSB on Ure. It went through several revisions
and enlargements before the seventh four-volume edition appeared in 1875. It was translated into almost every European
language, including Russian and Spanish. The vastness of research Ure put into it is reflected in the fact that the French
translation involved 19 collaborators, all expert in their own specialized subjects. See W.S.C. Copeman, “Andrew Ure,
M.D., F.R.S. (1778–1857),” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 44 (1951), p. 661.

This was the first and only work published in an intended series. A posthumous edition appeared in 1861 and a German
translation came out in 1836.

This reported the results of his sensational public experiment on the electrically induced activation of the muscles of an
executed murderer. The article was republished by three French journals, according to the Royal Society Catalogue.

Ibid., p. 618, 89–90 (here he gives a quantitative description of the make-up of the major kinds of rock found in the primitive
crustal rocks), and 165 (where he said that “I have examined with great care many specimens of coals of the purest
quality”).

Ibid., p. 55–71, 481–499. In this he relied heavily on the Meteorological Essays (1823) of John Daniell, the leading scientist
in this field at the time. Daniell was one of those influenced by Ure’s 1817 journal article on the latent heat of vapor,
mentioned above. See Anonymous, Dr. Andrew Ure: A Slight Sketch, p. 8.

Ure, Geology, p. xiv, 366–367, 470, 481.

The lack of reference to Young is noteworthy in light of the facts that both were Scottish, both attended Edinburgh University,
and Ure, like Young, gave considerable space to a discussion of the Kirkdale Cave (ibid., p. 567–580). However,
contrary to Young, Ure favored Buckland’s interpretation that it had been an antediluvian hyena den.

Ibid., p. 616.

Ibid., p. 290, vii, 153, 480, 377.

Lyell wrote this comment about Ure in a letter to his sister just prior to the publication of Ure’s book. See K.M. Lyell, Life,
Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. (1881), I: p. 238.

Ure, Geology, p. xiii.

In discussing the primitive atmosphere he stated, “On a subject so transcendent and mysterious as the state of the new
born atmosphere, it becomes not man to dogmatize. It is, therefore in perfect humility, that I offer the following suggestions”
(ibid., p. 69). Of the primeval ocean and its relation to land he wrote, “In attempting to search into the secondary
causes which may have been called into action, when the channel of the sea was hollowed out, and the mountains were
upheaved from the abyss, it behooves us to walk with the most humble circumspection. . . . The reproach of presumption
will indeed be incurred, if we do not travel closely to the inductive path. We must, above all, beware lest we be misled by
vague analogy” (ibid., p. 73). He was also restrained in his remarks about the origin and nature of coal (ibid., p. 163–174),
the origin of valleys (ibid., p. 355–357), and the restructuring of the earth during the Flood (ibid., p. 437–348).

Ibid., p. 615.

DSB on Ure, p. 547. Scott wrote the DSB article on Ure. Scott also said that Ure wrote “a series of tendentious pamphlets,
in which his fellow scientists were frequently castigated.” But Scott cited no sources to support this assertion and I could
find no such pamphlets in any library catalog or reference made to them by any other primary or secondary sources which
Scott did provide.

W.V. Farrar, “Andrew Ure, F.R.S., and the Philosophy of Manufactures,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London,
vol. 27, no. 2 (Feb. 1973), p. 301 and 306. Farrar made many critical remarks about Ure’s character, but more often than
not they were assertions without documentation. Several of Farrar’s negative assertions, that I was able to check for accuracy,
proved to be inaccurate.
For example, in discussing Ure’s Philosophy of Manufactures (1835) Farrar (p. 318) accused Ure of asserting that working
at 150ºF was not unhealthy. In fact, Ure never made such a general statement but instead described (on pages 392–393)
one particular case of women, called “stove girls,” whose job was to supervise the drying of wet dyed cloth in very hot
rooms, which they were in for only a few minutes at a time. This was an enviable job among women in the factory and all
such stove girls in the factories observed appeared to be in perfect health. On page 316, Farrar said that Ure’s last chapter
on the commercial economy of the factory system was “a diatribe” in favor of free trade. However, although Ure clearly
favored free trade, the tone of the chapter is calm and respectful, not bitterly critical of all other views of commerce.
On the same page, Farrar also said that in that chapter Ure gave a “curious defense of smuggling.” But he did no such
thing. He merely described the fact that smugglers will always find ways to circumvent bad government trade laws and that
ultimately their activities become the stimulus to change faulty legislation. But Ure was not advocating smuggling. Further
proof of this was his chemical analyses in 1842–43, which helped the commissioners of Customs to discover a smuggling
operation. In the process, Ure regrettably had to expose the errors in chemical analysis done by two prominent chemists,
Professors Thomas Graham and William Brande, Ure’s friend. See Andrew Ure, The Revenue in Jeopardy from Spurious
Chemistry (1843).
Finally, on page 320, Farrar erroneously stated that, in relation to this 1843 smuggling investigation, Ure was “an official of the Customs.” Ure was most explicit in his Revenue in Jeopardy (p. iii) that he was not and received no salary from
Customs. Instead, he was paid two guineas for each individual chemical analysis, regardless of how much time and money
each analysis required. Farrar continued by saying that in this pamphlet Ure had attacked his former friend and fellow
chemist, Brande, with “unnecessary bitterness.” But the Revenue in Jeopardy, which is largely comprised of letters and other
documents (by Ure, Brande, Graham, and others), did not constitute a bitter attack by Ure against these professors. Nor
was his exposure of their mistaken chemical analyses unnecessary since they had erroneously advised the Customs.

W.S.C. Copeman, “Andrew Ure, M.D., F.R.S. (1778–1857),” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 44 (1951),
p. 657–658 and 661–662. Another of Ure’s biographer said that “his conversation was always most interesting and instructive.”
See Anonymous, Dr. Andrew Ure: A Slight Sketch, p. 17.

As further support for this conclusion, it should be born in mind that although Hitchcock, a prominent American old-earth
geologist, largely rejected Ure’s views, he did commend Ure’s temperate expression of them. See Edward Hitchcock, “The
Historical and Geological Deluges Compared,” The American Biblical Repository, vol. IX, no. 25 (1837), p. 113.

Andrew Ure, Geology, p. xxxiii–xxxiv.

Ibid., p. xxi–xxii.

Ibid., p. xiii.

Ibid., p. 86, also xxxix–xliii and 183–184. This was, in fact, one of the stated purposes of Ure’s book (p. xxxviii).

Ibid., p. xviii. In this statement, he forgot Laplace’s nebular hypothesis, which he mentioned elsewhere in the book and
which was an evolutionary view of the origin of the solar system.

Ibid., p. xix–xx.

Andrew Ure, Geology, p. 15–16.

Ibid., p. vii–viii.

Ibid., p. xxxvii.

Ibid., p. xxxix.

Ibid., p. xl–xli and lv.

Ibid., p. 13–15, 86. He accepted Ussher’s date of creation (4004 B.C.), knowing that people would scoff at him. But he
asked, if the earth was made for man, why we need to imagine a more distant beginning for earth or the universe of stars,
planets, etc., which were the result of one and the same creative mandate. At the end of the book (p. 608–615) he discussed
his reasons for rejecting the Hindu chronology (of a vastly older earth) as fabulous myth.

Ibid., p. 11, 82.

Ibid., p. 7–10. In support of his notion of the primitive earth, he quoted Isaac Newton’s Opticks (I found Ure’s undocumented
quotation of Newton in the 1931 edition of Opticks, p. 400 and 402). Later, Ure continued, “Had we been told
that Deity, in the beginning, created a chaos out of which symmetry was to be educed through a long series of material
transmutations, then philosophy might have proffered her conjectures concerning the order of evolution; but ancient chaos
is merely a mythological fiction, disavowed alike by the word and wisdom of God. . . . Chaos is, in fact, a dogma borrowed
by Pythagoras from the Persian Magi” (ibid., p. 12).

In reference to this miraculous creation of plants on day 3, he wrote (ibid., p. 81–82) that such an idea “does not seem
to have been made a stumbling block by the botanical student, as the first arrangement of the mineral strata, has been by
the geologist. . . . No botanist or zoologist, of sane reputation, inculcates that plants and animals acquired their perfect
and unvarying forms, through successive organic depositions and catastrophes, as geognostic theorists have taught with
regard to the primitive structure of the earth.” In a further rejection of evolution (biological, geological, or astronomical)
he added, “The achievement of creation, by distinct and independent acts, was performed on each of six successive days;
demonstrating that it was not the result of a blind necessity, or a spontaneous, and therefore continuous, though irregular
aggregation of chaotic atoms” (ibid., p. 86–87). Whether Ure denied any variation of the species is not clear. He did believe
that after the Flood, God created new forms of life supernaturally, the creatures on the ark only serving as food for Noah
and his family until the earth was replenished with other sources of food. On the other hand, we cannot legitimately make
too much of this with reference to biological variation, since Ure’s view of post-Flood creation was an attempt to explain
the difference between the extinct fossilized creatures and existing forms.

Ure, Geology, p. 17–51, 82. In a lengthy discussion of the undulation (wave) theory of light (with reference to M. Arago’s
experiments), Ure argued that light had existence before the sun became the primary light-bearer for earth on day 4. He
added that had Moses written Genesis 1 on the basis of sense perception and Egyptian education he would not have put
the creation of light before the sun. Obviously, it would appear that Ure had not adequately pondered the fact that he was
being a bit loose and inconsistent in his interpretation by putting the creation of the sun on day 1 and of its luminosity on
day 4. Using interpretation of sun spots given by Herschel, a leading astronomer of the day, Ure rejected Buffon’s theory
that the sun was the molten parent of the other planets (ibid., p. xxxv–xxxvii).

Ibid., p. 89–92.

Ibid., p. 129–130.

Ibid., p. 495, 599–602, 51–70.

In support of this Ure cited Genesis 3:17–19 and 5:29 (ibid., p. 274).

Ure, Geology, p. 436–439, 470–474, 505–506.

Ibid., p. 130, 169, 594–595.

Ibid., p. 498, 602–604. Concerning the Egyptian desert, he argued that according to historical records, the fertility of
Egypt was much greater at the times of Cleopatra and Caesar Augustus. If the Flood had been more ancient than the date
set by Moses, then Egypt should have long before their times become an uninhabitable desert.

Ure, Geology, p. 505–506.

Ibid., p. liii, 130, 349, 439.

Ibid., p. 373–374. In contrast, he said this about the theory of the earth evolving from a nebulous cloud: “I am not conscious
of having employed in the preceding investigation, any causes whose operation is not both actual and sufficient to
explain the appearances. I leave others to speculate about the igneous origin of the globe, and its having spontaneously
evolved during an indefinite period of refrigeration, successive orders of organic forms. This hypothesis is founded neither
on natural or revealed knowledge; nor will it accord with those great and sudden crises of temperature, which innumerable
monuments attest” (ibid., p. 498).

Ibid., p. 350, 471, 475.

John Phillips, Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire (1829). Pages 16–30 present his view of a global flood. William Smith,
Phillips’ uncle, held a similar view of the geological effects of a global flood, apparently till the end of his life, though he
never equated it with the Noachian flood. See John Phillips, Memoirs of William Smith (1844), p. 25–26, and T. Sheppard,
“William Smith: His maps and Memoirs,” Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic Society, N.S. vol. XIX
(1914–22), p. 175 and facing chart.

Ure, Geology, p. 472.

Ibid., p. 483–494, 599–603. Not surprisingly, Hallum makes no mention of Ure in his history of the ice-age theory in the
19th century. See A. Hallum, Great Geological Controversies (1992), p. 87–104.

Earlier, Ure had given a rather technical discussion of this canopy, based on Daniell’s Meteorological Essays. See Ure, Geology,
p. 51–70. In Ure’s view, these clouds were not the only or even the major source of water for the Flood. Ure rejected
the notion of any “super-aerial ocean” as being contrary to the principles of meteorology. For Ure, the Flood was largely
the result of the sinking of the land mass and raising of the ocean bottom by volcanic and sedimentary processes (ibid., p.
475–476).

He estimated temperatures of about 120 degrees in the daytime and 110 at night (ibid., p. 599).

He said the phenomenon of heavy dew would have been similar to those experienced at the time in Lima, Peru, and other
regions of the world (ibid., p. 601).

This was far greater than the cooling effect envisaged as a result of the pre-Flood catastrophes.

He cited the work of Jens Esmark (1763–1839), a leading Norwegian old-earth geology professor, who, on the basis of
his studies in Norway, had concluded that in the past, and on more than one occasion, the whole earth had been covered
with ice and snow (and all the water on earth had been frozen), only to completely thaw later. Some of his research and
his own peculiar theory of the earth appeared in Jens Esmark, “Remarks Tending to Explain the Geological History of the
Earth,” Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. II (Oct. 1826–Apr. 1827), p. 107–121. Esmark likewise got no mention
by Hallum (footnote 74 above).

DNB says that Parry was a famous naval explorer who searched for the northwest passage from the Atlantic to Pacific.

Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and Art, N.S. vol. V (Jan.-Mar. 1829), p. 113–132. The review is not signed, but like
the previously noted reviews of Granville Penn’s work, I think (for the same reasons as in Penn’s case) that it was probably
done by William Brande, the long-time editor of the journal. Farrar suggested, solely on the basis of the style of language
used in the review, that Ure wrote the review himself. See W.V. Farrar, “Andrew Ure, F.R.S., and the Philosophy of Manufactures,”
Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, vol. 27, no. 2 (Feb. 1973), p. 312. Assessing style, however, is
a very subjective task. Though Ure contributed a number of articles to the journal and was a personal friend of Brande’s,
such a serious allegation seems a fanciful speculation, and quite out of keeping with the tenor of Ure’s life, as remarked by
other biographers, and reflected by his Christian convictions, as expressed in his Geology. Farrar’s idea would also implicate
Brande, who as editor would have approved the review. But he offered no evidence that Brande would be an accomplice
to such a deception.

Sedgwick’s censure was especially harsh in light of his own recantation of what he called “geological heresy” (belief that the
Flood was the cause of the diluvium), which he made just one year later from the same chair of the Geological Society.

“Now I allow (as all geologists must do) a kind of progressive development. For example, the first fish are below the reptiles;
and the first reptiles older than man.” See John W. Clark and Thomas M. Hughes, The Life and Letters of Rev. Adam Sedgwick
(1890), II: p. 86. It is also how Buckland presented the geological record pictorially in his Bridgewater Treatise (1836), II:
Plate 1.

In his Bridgewater Treatise (1836), I: p. 294, Buckland said fish were found in the transition strata.

William D. Conybeare and William Phillips, Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales (1822), p. 245. Conybeare and
Phillips did not name the species of caryophyllia. The fossil also was found in lower Mountain Limestone, far below the
oolite (ibid., p. 359).

In spite of his reputation for meticulous accuracy in his science, evidently he frequently sent his manuscripts off to the printer
in haste, without adequate proofreading. See W.S.C. Copeman, “Andrew Ure, M.D., F.R.S. (1778–1857),” Proceedings of
the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 44 (1951), p. 660.

Conybeare and Phillips, Outlines of the Geology of England and Wales, p. lix–lx. The three views Conybeare discussed were
1) the theory, like Ure’s, that the primary rocks were formed in the initial creation of the earth on day 1; the transition,
secondary, and tertiary strata were formed during the 1,600 years between day 2 and the Flood; and the diluvium were
laid down and the general appearance of the present continents were formed by the Flood; 2) the gap theory in which the
primary to tertiary were formed in the supposed millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 and the rest was attributed
to the Flood; and 3) the day-age theory in which the primary to tertiary were formed during indefinitely long creation days
of Genesis 1 and the rest by the Flood. Of course, as we will see in the case of George Young, there was also a fourth view
held by some geologists at this time, namely, that the Flood produced the secondary, tertiary, and diluvial deposits.